Menopause, Brain Fog, and Women in Education: A Leadership Issue We Can No Longer Ignore

Why awareness of cognitive symptoms of menopause matters in female dominated professions and how workplaces can respond better.

New research from the University of Cambridge has found significant links between menopause and the loss of grey matter in the brain. This could explain why women are more likely to develop dementia than men.”

Waking up to this headline on my radio alarm was sobering.

We talk (a little) about the physical symptoms of menopause, but far less openly about the cognitive ones. And yet these are often the most distressing, professionally and personally.

Memory lapses. Difficulty concentrating. Brain fog. Verbal recall issues. Slower processing speed.

These are not symptoms most women feel able to share freely at work, unless with trusted, understanding colleagues. And in professions where credibility is closely tied to thinking fast and speaking fluently, the shame can be profound.

This feels especially important in education, where around 65–70% of the workforce is female. Why aren’t we talking about this more?

The year before I left full-time education, I was in a meeting when a colleague.. finished my sentences. As someone who had always prided herself on being a quick thinker with an agile mind, the shame was searing. As a Director of Music, brain fog became an unwelcome guest — particularly in high-pressure meetings with senior leaders and parents. And pressure only made it worse.

Midlife is also a time of reinvention, regeneration and physis — life force. But those possibilities depend on the conditions being right.

So the question is no longer whether menopause belongs in workplace conversations, but how. What would it look like to normalise these experiences? To build flexibility into roles, meetings, and expectations? To train leaders to respond with curiosity rather than discomfort?

And for women navigating this stage of life: what practical forms of support would make the greatest difference in your working day, not to diminish your contribution, but to enhance it?